Mask Of Glass
by Sky Samuelle
Summary: After she married Jesse, Isabel visits Alex


Mask Of Glass  
  
Goodbye to you,   
  
goodbye to everything I thought I knew,  
  
You were the one I loved,  
  
the one thing that I tried to hold on to.  
  
I still get lost in your eyes,  
  
and it seems that I can't live a day without you,  
  
closing my eyes,  
  
and you chase my thoughts away,  
  
to a place where I am blinded by the light,  
  
but it's not right.  
  
Goodbye to you,  
  
goodbye to everything I thought I knew,  
  
You were the one I loved,  
  
the one thing that I tried to hold on to.  
  
Hold on to...  
  
and it hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time''   
  
From "Goodbye to You" - Michelle Branch  
  
   
  
I miss being your lady in red.  
  
Are you listening? Are you listening, Alex? It's difficult to feel you now I can't see you, and I'm standing before a grave.  
  
A grave isn't you. It's unable to feel, to listen, to love. A grave is cruel and can stab you in your chest with its sight alone, reducing your heart in shreds. I feel like an idiot standing here before this thing that has so little to do with you; waiting for you appear before me out of thin air.  
  
I was prepared to let you go.  
  
What I hadn't realized was that I would miss the fragment of my imagination with your face and voice in it. It kept me company, but I know perfectly it wasn't you.  
  
It felt like you, though. It had your passion for music, your patience, your strange kind of wisdom, and made me laugh like if it was you, but it's irrelevant because I wasn't you.  
  
I don't know what to do with you. I didn't know when you were alive, so I don't see how I could know now you're dead.  
  
The others don't understand and neither I want nor understand anything anymore.  
  
I looked at our old photos today. Jesse was out and I was putting everything in order. I glimpsed it and all I could do to do grab it was stare it, a temptation too great to resist. I hadn't meant to open it and flip through the pages, but I wondered what wrong could be in it.  
  
All that I saw was a girl at the prom and I feel like a stranger inside my body. She smiled so much that day, had never dreamed she could be so happy. She had fantasized about prom since sophomore year and she wanted it perfect. She had never imagined you at her side, and felt so lucky because finally she kissed you and wanted to give you many other kisses and had all the time to do it. How wrong she was, so self-involved and ingenuous at same time. She knew nothing about loss and betrayal.  
  
I couldn't continue to hold on to your loss, you know? I couldn't bear it.  
  
The thought of you does strange things to me; you always made feel so beautiful and nice, but also unsafe.  
  
I can't feel so drained and hurt anymore.  
  
I'm sorry, for you, for me, for what could be been.  
  
But Alex, what good would it have done if I had locked myself in our little world? If I had let the numbness harden my heart so no else could enter anymore?  
  
I'm not as strong as I look, and I 'm afraid of being alone.  
  
You aren't my reality, and if I promise I will remember you until I die, it's all that I have to offer. It's not enough for me.  
  
I need to make everything make sense again. It's why I married Jesse. If I try hard enough, we will be very happy together. Yes, we have a few differences and…unsaid things between us but it's okay. He's handsome and so strong. He's what I need right now. I gave him my heart to keep myself whole.   
  
I do love him. I love him.  
  
I love you.  
  
I brought you a red rose, our flower.  
  
So please, please forgive me if I need to get away from you. The past can't return and we all have to find someway to survive, any way we can.  
  
Max has his son, and if he doesn't find him, he'll always have Liz, like Michael will always have Maria—no matter what they say. I still have my future, and I need to get a grip of it. I'll go insane if I don't.  
  
I'll have a family, with a gorgeous husband, a wonderful home like I grew up in, only with more classy furniture, and lovely and intelligent kids.  
  
I'll be a wife and a mother, like I dreamed of so often and never confessed to a soul. Without you, and without psycho aliens to destroy my peace of mind. I want to believe in it so much. I have to, otherwise how will I go on?  
  
I remember a time when we were a real family, and my world looked compact, undestroyable. I would come to the Crash Down—hoping not to interrupt Max and Liz making doe eyes at each other—and almost every day I would see you there, sitting at a booth either chatting with Maria or writing your music. I would pretend to not notice you, glancing at your direction every once in awhile with premeditated casualty. I would know the exact moment you saw me because your eyes would light up and a goofy grin would work its way to your lips. Then I would smile because I knew what you were thinking and feeling (it was written all over your face) and I would play the indifferent Ice Queen because it scared me at death. I should have said to you then that I loved you back, that your love was more than I deserved, more than I could handle.  
  
I never did. Not really. I pushed you away instead, since I knew I wouldn't lose you.  
  
I wasn't ready, I said to myself time and time again, and I didn't know if I would ever be ready for what you were offering me. None of my admirers had ever looked at me like you did, like a child ready to unwrap his presents morning of Christmas morning.  
  
I kept you close, but at a range, careful not to let you understand what you were becoming for me, that I was beginning to smile not because of you, but for you. It was impossible to even admit to myself back then. Then I didn't know how precious a true smile was.  
  
I'm a coward. I always have been and I always will be.  
  
Do you want to know a something? It doesn't matter anymore; nobody will see past my mask of glass.  
  
And as I turn, my steps mechanically bringing me away this cemetery, away from you, one question keeps pounding in my head.  
  
Why, God? 


End file.
